NVIDIA Shield: Portable Gaming Console Pre Orders Begins May 20

The portable gaming console formerly known as Project Shield will arrive at select online and retailer outlets starting from next month, developer Nvidia announced Tuesday.

Recently, Nvidia unveiled its mobile gaming device in a surprise move at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. Known as Shield, the new Android-powered mobile gaming device is the first to be produced by a company best known for its line of graphics processing units (GPUs) and mobile processors will debut at $349 (approx. Rs 19,100).

Sheild will come with a 5 inch multi-touch display, 16GB internal storage, micro SD card support, GPS, Bluetooth, HDMI,Tegra 4 quad core processor and 2GB RAM.

Units will begin shipping to select stores including GameStop, Newegg, Micro Center, and Canada Computers in June, Nvidia said in blog post that fans can begin pre-ordering the device starting from May 20. Also, for those who have previously signed up for the device's newsletter through Nvidia's website, the pre-order is open immediately.

Of course, the Shield is an ambitious little gadget, and the ability for players to stream PC games to the thing is sure to win it some fans, but is this thing really going to sell at such a high price tag? At Rs 19,000, Shield is more expensive than XBox 360 or a PlayStation 3. Moreover, Sony and Nintendo have slashed the price of their gaming consoles in order to lift the sales and have relished success now. Hence, Nvidia seems to have a tough battle set in front of it.